14.1 Introduction

In the preceding section, we emphasized the role of mergers in shaping the evolution of galaxies. In order to collide, galaxies must be fairly close together. To estimate how often collisions occur and how they affect galaxy evolution, astronomers need to know how galaxies are distributed in space and over cosmic time. Are most of them isolated from one another or do they congregate in groups? If they congregate, how large are the groups and how and when did they form? And how, in general, are galaxies and their groups arranged in the cosmos? Are there as many in one direction of the sky as in any other, for example? How did galaxies get to be arranged the way we find them today?

Edwin Hubble found answers to some of these questions only a few years after he first showed that the spiral nebulae were galaxies and not part of our Milky Way. As he examined galaxies all over the sky, Hubble made two discoveries that turned out to be crucial for studies of the evolution of the universe.

Attribution

“28.3 The Distribution of Galaxies in Space” from Douglas College Astronomy 1105 by Douglas College Department of Physics and Astronomy, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Adapted from Astronomy 2e.